A NEW account of the shooting of a Brazilian man on the London Tube alleged he had walked into the station and was sat on a train when he was tackled by a police officer, seconds before he was killed.

Documents obtained by ITV News claim that Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was grabbed by a member of a surveillance team before being shot.

Mr de Menezes was killed at Stockwell Tube station a day after the attempted July 21 attacks in London after armed police mistakenly identified him as a terrorist.

Early accounts of the shooting described him vaulting over the barriers to the tube station, running to a Tube train and tripping over before being shot.

CCTV footage

But a document from the investigation into the death, obtained by ITV News, said that CCTV footage from the day tells a different story.

It captured Mr de Menezes entering the station at a "normal walking pace", even collecting a free newspaper, and slowly descending on an escalator.

Mr de Menezes was seen to board the train. A man sitting opposite him is quoted as saying: "Within a few seconds I saw a man coming into the double doors to my left.

"He was pointing a small black handgun towards a person sitting opposite me. He pointed the gun at the right hand side of the man's head. The gun was within 12 inches of the man's head when the first shot was fired."

A member of the surveillance team said in the report: "I grabbed the male in the denim jacket by wrapping both my arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his side.

"I then pushed him back on to the seat... I then heard a gun shot very close to my left ear and was dragged away onto the floor of the carriage."

The report obtained by ITV News also said a post mortem examination showed Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Officers wrongly believed Mr de Menezes could have been one of two suspects - including July 21 suspect Hussain Osman - according to the documents.

Scotland Yard said last night it could not comment while an IPCC investigation was ongoing.

Shocking

Harriet Wistrich, lawyer for the de Menezes family, said: "I think it is absolutely shocking and terrifying.

"Shocking certainly in the sense that we now know that the information that was being put out at the start is false in many respects.

"Not only was he entirely innocent but that he was doing nothing that should have warranted the police reaction."